Product

What’s Your Market

Earlier today I was at what we call a “mastermind” group. Basically, there’s four of us who try to get together once a month to discuss where we are in our businesses and try to see if we can help each other to stay on target for our business and personal goals.

definitely not dinosaurs…

While discussing an idea, one of the participants asked the question “what would our market be.” Truthfully, I didn’t quite understand the question, and went with my gut response, which is usually “why do we need to figure out who our market is?”

I come from the school of “just do it“, because one thing I notice a lot of people do is think about something to the point where they eventually don’t do anything. I’m the type who’ll think about something, think some more, then finally come to a realization it’s time to get it done and worry about other things later on.

Later on, we came back to this topic, and I finally said I wasn’t sure what her point was, as in, what she was asking me. She then explained herself, and at that point I started to understand it a bit more. We then talked about the website of mine that I highlighted the other day, Medical Billing Answers, and she asked me who I thought that market was.

I first said almost anyone, which she didn’t like, so I thought about it some more and I said that when the idea first came to me, I was thinking about the medical billing consumer, that person who has questions about their medical bills that can’t find anyone impartial to ask their questions of. Then, after the site was created and some of the articles were up on the site, it turned out that the biggest consumer of my site, as in the people asking me questions, were people who did medical billing, not the consumers. That’s how I came to see that particular site as being for anyone, since obviously I’m not good at deciding who my consumer is.

She then asked me about this blog, which she’s never seen, and asked me who my market is, and who my consumers are. I actually drew a blank; I’ve never really thought about it before. I mean, I’ve thought about the topics often enough, but even when I launched this blog and wrote my first post, I talked more about what I wanted to do with this blog than who I wanted to serve, or who I was hoping would visit.

The truth is that I want everyone to visit this blog; is that really too much to ask? lol What types of visitors am I looking for, beyond everyone? Tough question indeed. Let’s see if I can define it with some honesty, since that’s what I’m all about.

First, I’m hoping that some of the visitors who come here are buyers. I’m hoping that some of the things people are thinking about buying are some of the things I talk about, or some of the things I promote.

Second, I’m hoping that some of the visitors who come here are hoping to learn something. I talk about a lot of things that many other folks don’t talk about, or, hopefully, in some detail that they might not go into, such as my post on how to be a prolific writer.

who wants more of this?

Third, I’m hoping that some of the visitors who come here are looking to see how someone else who’s going through the things they’re going through in trying to find ways to make money with their blogs is doing it, and is ready to share in the ride of success; never failure, as any time something doesn’t work, it was just a learning opportunity on the way to bigger and better things. Then again, I’m not big on the word failure, calling it experimentation instead In any case, I share when I make mistakes concerning other things with computing, like when I talked about wiping out all my files and the process I had to go through to recover them; ouch!

Fourth, I’m hoping that some of the visitors who come here are looking to share their experiences with me and with anyone else who reads this blog, because I truly feel that we are a community if we wish to be, and that in every situation, every encounter, that can be shared with someone else, there’s something for someone to learn from.

Fifth, I’m hoping that all of the visitors to this site will find something to entertain themintrigue them, to shock them> and make them think about something they’ve probably never thought about before. To touch their hearts, share something with them that they’ve probably never heard of before, and generally to have fun. If we can’t have a little bit of fun, education, and thinking mixed in, what’s the point, right?

I’ll put this out to you, the readers of this blog. Help me help and entertain you. I don’t know all the answers, but, as you’ve seen, I’ll do some research here and there. How do you like what you’ve seen thus far? Is there a topic that you’d like to see me cover more, or less? What kind of information are you looking for that you might be looking to purchase? What kind of products? What is it that I can help you with? And, what do you think my market is, or should be? Turning it around, what is it that you’d like to help me with?

By the way, I will probably be giving more information about myself over the coming weeks, just to some of you can learn more things about me and all my businesses, because there’s obviously more than my post on about pages covered. Who knows; I just might get to work with you someday. 🙂

This post has 7 comments

Interesting post. I really need to find a local mastermind group (or put one together). It’s not something I’ve ever been a part of, but I always see people talking highly of them (and it seems to spur a lot of productive thinking).

Thanks for writing, Lindsay. I’ve known two of the people in my group for at least 6 years now, and the fourth member just joined in, what, August? But we didn’t start meeting until April or so as a business group, though we’d all meet up socially here and there.

It can be an interesting question, Dennis. I tend to believe that for a blog, the target market can be vast, whereas for a brick and mortar (or consulting business, like I have), the target market does need to be defined, if more for costs than for effectiveness. With blogs, the first important step is driving traffic, and then fine tuning to get targeted traffic. I think my business blog has proven that one to me.

I’ve enjoyed reading several posts on your blog today. I’ve been tied up for the last two or three weeks and haven’t been making my normal “rounds.”

In the past, I’ve been a member of a couple of masterminds and I have been thinking for a week about starting a new one and trying to decide who to invite. This will be a local, offline, in-person group. I know they can be valuable, if the right people are selected and we can focus on a particular goal.

Now that I’m more comfortable with the care Mom’s receiving in the nursing home, I’m turning my attention more to the offline, local world.

I have over 20 years experience as a consultant and I’m looking forward to expanding my business as a marketing consultant. I know I can help some of the local business owners and I know I can earn thousands of dollars with the same effort it takes to earn hundreds of dollars with affiliate marketing.

I don’t plan to stop affiliate marketing, just to expand what I’m doing. Affiliate marketing was a life-saver for all those years when I was caring for Mom full-time and couldn’t leave the house, and I still enjoy it very much.

Over the last several years, I’ve done a lot of testing with blogs and websites. Now, I’ve identified a couple of niches that I’ll be concentrating on: affiliate marketing and businesses in western North Carolina.

The first will be done mostly with online efforts and the latter will require a lot more offline promotion and “bridge building.”

I feel like I’ve spent months identifying my main goals and target markets, and now it’s time to actually do the work.

I’m not proposing that we have to identify our target markets before we do anything, because I know quite a few people who have succeeded without doing that. I know as many, or more, who did all the analysis first, and still failed when it came time to execute the plan.

I think this is something each individual needs to decide and I don’t think there is a “one size fits all” approach to business.

On another of your posts, you talk about loving to learn. I don’t remember right now the exact expression you used, but I can really identify with that. I love to learn. Over the last three weeks, I’ve been an information sponge as I am focusing on helping local business owners do a better job of marketing. While I’m soaking up information, I just don’t feel motivated to write anything, so my blogs suffer.

Eventually, I’ll be able to synthesize what I’m learning and then it will be time to start talking about it on one or more of my blogs, websites, and forums.

When you’re in learning mode, does that make you a less prolific writer?

I wish I had more time to comment on several of your posts, today, but I still have other things that need to be done. I’m going to try to get back here daily, now that the decisions are made on my new approach for my business.

John, you write such wonderful comments! Not in any order, but no, when I’m in learning mode it doesn’t stop my writing one bit. The only thing that seems to interrupt my writing is when I’m on the road or out of the house at meetings.

Second, I truly believe that one can just start something if they know what it is they want to do, but the truth is that most people have spent at least some kind of time thinking about something before they do it. I’d thought about doing this blog for about a month before I started it, thinking about the genre, but not necessarily how I was going to write. To me, that made me something different than the norm, and, as you’ve seen, there’s plenty of “norm” around the blogosphere.

There’s still this odd question of affiliate and internet marketing and just how someone else does it. I’m probably going to be addressing that in a blog post sometime in the near future (probably later this evening). I now have some ideas to explore; sometimes, all one needs is more time.

I did see the birthday pictures of your mother; glad she had a nice birthday, and glad you’re feeling better about all of it also.